twilight at salk lake

picking up the new book I picked up from the neo-hubs of literature -
Oxford or Crossroads take your pick.
drawing the chair to the front of my unused and algae-rich garage,
i hung up my Sunday feet on the gaps between my gate.
i was getting ready to start the book but held back to look around
the place we refer to as neighborhood.
there was none, not men, not women, not beasts, not ghosts, no one
who was looking at me or being looked at

the trees, green or otherwise were laded with fruits and flowers
but no one to throw stones at them,
to be chased away by sticks and abuses.
the big, splendid uninviting gates were locked to their hinges fast
no one swaying them with one foot from end to end,
drowning the noise of the heeds of elders.
the roads were clean or neat or barren for that matter,
no chocolate wrappers thrown carelessly,
no skeletons of kulfi-sticks devoid of flesh
no one was peeping out of the windows with some GK book in hand
waiting for some signal, to start the great escape,
escaping the watchful eyes of parents.

stray maids walk along the roads in bright colourful sarees,
always absorbed in thoughts of some other place
their own homes of course.
cars and taxis come and go frequently here, briefly disturbing the silence
with the noise of their horns
and that of rubber against concrete
TVs make constant noises too, undistinguished though:
always on, inside these houses,
makes one think who is watched by whom.
workmen gently hammering away at a distance, break my thought
angry at first, i then wondered
what is doing the same to us all the time?